Reuters quoted Mr Klaus Schmidt Hebbel chief economist at Organization for Economic Co operation & Development as saying that the global economic downturn will be considerably deeper than even the International Monetary Fund forecast a month ago. He added that "The recession will deepen there's no doubt. I think this quarter will be the worst quarter of all."

On January 28th 2009, IMF cut its forecast for global growth to 0.5% in 2009 from an earlier prediction of 2.2%. It also forecast a 2% slide in economic output from the world's most advanced economies as a whole, an equally large downgrading of forecasts it had made in November 2008.

Mr Hebbel said that even those drastic revisions failed to reflect the extent of the downturn at this stage. He added that "The shape of it will be a significantly deeper recession than what was forecast by the IMF in January, at all levels. It will be significantly deeper and more protracted, meaning longer than what is embodied in the IMF forecasts of late January."

He said that "The OECD economies will do significantly worse than the world economy because in emerging economy countries like the Indias, Chinas and some others, growth will still be slightly positive in 2009."

(Sourced from www.reuters.com)